Unfixable
by Kakawot
Summary: To Rose's count, there are 3.132 settings on the sonic screwdriver. But there are two things in this world even the sonic can't fix.


She'd come to rely on him and his little gadgets to fix everything. Well, gadgets was too plural for her taste. She could hardly call the TARDIS a gadget, not if she didn't want to find herself chucked out of the ship mid-time stream. The sonic screwdriver, however, certainly was a gadget. The Doctor loved it, and Rose understood why. It was a nifty little thing to have around.

So far it had locked doors, reattached barbed wire, fixed computers, broken computers, vaporized water and who knew what else the Doctor had been up to with his bleeping companion. She came to rely on it as much as the Doctor, although without an user manual it was best held in the Doctor's hands, lest she burnt holes through everything she came across.

The Doctor hadn't been happy when he had to buy a brand new suit to replace the one she accidentally burnt through when attempting to close a door. He made her practice with the screwdriver the following day, to quickly get to the setting of 'lock door to keep evil aliens out', which was right next to 'lock door to keep humans out' and diagonally across from 'open door for me and evil alien'. The Doctor admitted he didn't use that one often.

But apart from the little clothes mishap it was a reliable tool.

So when she came across the little accident one evening, she didn't worry about it. It had been an uneventful evening by their standards. They'd come across a conspiracy about one underground group attempting to overthrow the government and end world-peace in order to bring about the evolution of their kind through war and solved it with the usual amount of running, fleeing and quipping jokes, peppered with a clever running commentary from the Doctor and a few laughs from Rose.

When they walked back to the TARDIS after a job well done, Rose happened to glance back at her legs. They looked darker than usual, thanks to the expensive pantyhose she wore. They were supposed to go to a fancy banquet, but the underground group held everybody hostage. She didn't have a bite to eat.

But that wasn't important. The huge run ruining her perfectly good recently bought and expensive pantyhose was important. It ran all the way from the straps of her heels to her thigh. Why she wore heels when she'd travelled with the Doctor longer than a day, she didn't know. Some day her femininity was going to be the death of her.

The Doctor noticed her groan and looked at her, his eyes demanding an explanation. Rose pointed at the ladder and explained her predicament.

"Can you fix it?" she asked. The Doctor leaned backwards and glanced at her legs before righting himself. He grinned at her and reached inside his suit jacket to grab his trusty sonic screwdriver. He thumbed through the settings, and Rose stopped walking in anticipation of the Doctor bending down and shining the blue light on her calves.

But no such thing happened.

"Doctor?" she questioned, but he didn't answer. He frowned at the screwdriver now, and she saw him browse through the settings too quick for her eyes to follow. There had to be at least three thousand of them on there, if not more.

"It's-" began the Doctor, but he cut himself off. His narrowed his eyes at the screwdriver and once again Rose saw thousands of settings flash by in the blink of an eye. But still he didn't bend down.

"The polymers," blurted the Doctor. He looked up at her and his face was a mix of apology and confusion. "The fibers are too weak to use the sonic screwdriver on. The vibrations would tear apart all the molecules and poof - your whole pantyhose dissolves into thin air."

"But it's nylon," argued Rose. "I've seen you repair nylon before."

The Doctor began walking again and Rose took a few swift steps to catch up. The Doctor rattled off something at his hyper-talking speed, of which Rose only caught a few words.

"Six on the denier scale… amide bonds… Avogrado's constant messing with the sonic vibrations…"

"So basically, you can't fix it," surmised Rose. The TARDIS came into view, parked neatly underneath a tree. Two grey birds sat on a branch exactly above the ship, and when they heard Rose talking they flew off. But in doing so they dropped something, and a long yellow trail of bird poop landed neatly on the blue box.

"Oh, that's perfect," groaned the Doctor. He turned back to Rose. "I _can_ fix it, just you wait. But first: home sweet home."

The Doctor used his key to let them into his ship, but the TARDIS refused to cooperate.

"What's the matter?" asked the Doctor, but Rose knew he aimed it at the ship and not her or the world in general. To her, the air was silent, but the alien ears of the Doctor apparently picked up the 'voice' of the TARDIS even outside the ship.

With a sigh he once again thumbed through the settings for the sonic screwdriver. His eyes widened and he repeated the exact same things he'd done only minutes before. Which was: checking it again and again until he was absolutely certain that it wasn't in there. Finally he abandoned the screwdriver-idea and reached up to wipe the yellow goop from the wooden box with his sleeve.

Now when the Doctor tried to open the door the TARDIS complied and let them in.

"Couldn't fix that either, huh?" asked Rose with a hidden grin in her voice. She fought hard to keep the real grin from breaking free, but at the dismal face the Doctor pulled she could no longer hold back.

"I so could! I … felt it was more personal for the old girl if I cleaned her myself."

The Doctor quickly turned away when Rose began to laugh.

"I think you need to add more settings," she said with a grin still on her face. She walked towards the room she had claimed as her own aboard the huge ship.

"I think I do," she heard the Doctor mutter. "Starting with a 'remove the alien bird poop from my ship' setting."

"And don't forget the 'fix the pantyhose' setting, Doctor," called Rose before she disappeared into her room.

"I think I'll add an 'shut companion up' setting, too!" threatened the Doctor. Already his mind was back to the drawing board, and Rose imagined the mental user manual growing a few pages.

But the next time they were on the run and her pantyhose tore, the Doctor was ready. He fixed it up, beamed at her, and then ducked as his head nearly got taken off by an aggressive axe-wielding alien.

"Too bad you never could get that 'get alien bird poop from your ship' setting," lamented Rose when they returned to the TARDIS after that adventure, only to find the TARDIS had gained a temporary white paint job.

"I knew I shouldn't have parked her that close to those Afritian Eagles nests," said the Doctor. He pulled up his sleeves as he stepped forward.

"I am so going to regret this," said Rose, but she helped him set the TARDIS straight after all.


End file.
